Thanksgiving Stories

By Kat Dublin

Reflecting on the many Thanksgivings throughout my life, I happened upon the memories of a few unfortunate incidents that occurred during Thanksgivings past. 

I remember one Thanksgiving, I was seven or eight, when my uncle yells, “Everyone! Come look at this!” He sounded genuinely concerned, so we all rushed into the kitchen. Uncle said. 

And there my uncle stood, stooped over the Thanksgiving turkey, hands pulling a tiny figure out of it—a baby turkey, “The turkey was pregnant,” he whispered, face a shaking mixture of fright and laughter.

My face, and the faces of my siblings and cousins, was solely fear. The turkey was pregnant?! 

Turns out, the “baby turkey” was actually just a tiny rotisserie chicken our hilarious parents had shoved into the turkey. Safe to say, I lost my appetite that day. 

Then, another memory came to mind. Thanksgiving when I was eighteen years old. It was the worst Thanksgiving to have ever graced the lives of my family. 

To start, both of my siblings began the week projectile vomiting throughout the house. So no Thanksgiving meal for them. 

Then, my family all went to Bass Pro, all three of my grandparents in tow. Everything was going smoothly, then came the escalator. My grandma took one step onto the contraption and fell backwards, rolling back as the escalator kept moving forward. The ambulance came, and she was alright, just very shaken. 

At this point in the Thanksgiving break week, we thought nothing more could go wrong. So, of course, one more thing went wrong. My grandpa had a transient ischemic attack or TIA. He was also alright, but it was still scary. 

After the recollection of all these memories, I decided to ask other students for their “Thanksgiving horror stories.” Fortunately, not too many people had them. But some did. 

Sophomore Noah Steelman remarked on one of his past Thanksgivings when miscommunication was the first item on the menu, “One year, there was severe miscommunication about who was supposed to bring what and almost everyone ended up bringing corn. We had turkey, a bunch of corn, and basically nothing else.” Steelman said. 

Sophomore Adin Costanzo had his Thanksgiving story ready to go, “Oh gosh, the story here is great. In 2021, our cousins stayed the night with us before everyone came over. The morning of Thanksgiving, we went to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade but we couldn’t get any broadcast except the Spanish one. Then, my mom tripped on a chair in the living room, which she had never done before. At this point, only my parents and sisters are up. I was rudely awoken by the smoke alarm that morning because some grease had fallen off the turkey and landed burned in the oven! So my mom rushes our food all over town to our extended family so it could be finished because our oven stopped working. Then, when everyone arrived, my dad decided to cut the turkey in my mom’s apron and with a little bow on his head (still have that picture). Lunch was somewhat normal, but when we went to serve dessert, the cheesecake fell off of the tray! All in all, it was a very weird day.” Costanzo said. 

Lastly, freshman Aden Harland talked about one of his most disgusting Thanksgivings, “One Thanksgiving, our team who served in China all celebrated it together at one of our apartments. Somebody brought oysters, which is pretty weird, and no one was eating them but him, so I wanted to try them. I took one bite and immediately threw them up all over my plate and some of the other food.” Harland said. A great way to start the meal.